Meet Flamy Grant, The Drag Queen Who Just Topped The Christian Music Chart

thegailygrind.com:

“Shame-slaying, hip-swaying, singing-songwriting” drag queen Flamy Grant’s debut album, “Bible Belt Baby,” just landed the No.

1 spot for top album on the iTunes Christian music chart. One of her singles on the album, “Good Day,” hit No. 2 in the top songs category. “This is a huge moment for the 16-year-old version of myself who was writing songs, hoping to be on the same stages that Amy Grant was playing as I was growing up,” the 41-year-old gospel and roots musician, who now lives in San Diego, told TODAY.com. “It’s massive and wonderful, and I’m so grateful.” Grant grew up in an evangelical fundamentalist community in Asheville, North Carolina, where she recalls not being allowed to listen to music outside of what was available at her local Christian bookstore as a kid.

Despite that, Grant says that “the impulse (toward drag) was clearly always there,” having photos of her younger self “prancing around” in her mother’s heels and nightgowns.

Grant says her church community didn’t foster that self-acceptance to embrace her true self. “Things that would have been considered traditionally feminine or feminine characteristics were mostly subtly shamed out of me, but sometimes very blatantly shamed out of me, like ‘That’s not how a boy behaves’ kind of thing,” she says. “I just learned really fast that if I was going to thrive in that community, I had to perform and exist in the world in a very specific way,” she adds. “And that was to be a boy and grow into a man and not rock the boat too much.” After college, Grant got involved in Exodus International, a gay conversion organization where she enrolled herself in conversion therapy for five years. “I wanted to fit in that badly,” Grant says. “That’s how deep my my